Audio Energizer = Loudness Maximizer??

David:

I agree with your sentiments, BUT…

Sadly (in this case), the business has changed so dramatically in the past few years. Label execs. once used to have decent component stereo systems in their offices, and there used to be a concern that the overall sound of mixes and mastering were good quality.

Now, the delivery of finished masters or mixes are auditioned mainly on car systems, or iPods. When your new material is tossed into the playlists of these people, they expect that the material is comparable to stuff they already have either on their label or other commercial releases. Death is when they have to turn up your mix after they've just been listening to another, loud, release.

I have had this discussion so many times with labels in the past couple of years I'm tired of it, but in reality I, as an independent producer, must accept that these people are my clients: they're paying my advances and have the contractual ability to demand remastering or remixing if in their view my product isn't 'present' or 'loud enough.'

This has lead to the standard being set at the lowest common denominator. It's regrettable, but I don't see a return to reason coming any time soon.

I'm now getting in to the habit of getting two mastering jobs done: one for release and one for promotion, sending to radio, and streaming. But I expect that soon I'll get busted, and I'll be criticized for this trick, and have my knuckles rapped.

da volume knobby on your audio inyourface.

john, i sympathize with you. i did what you're doing for years, and except, for the money, got nowhere.

audio and music, to me, are vocational.

if i had my way, there would only be an extremely tenuous link between music making and money making.

mino17, you've probably found it by now, of course. i also couldn't find the thing for a while, then i remembered, it's not a plugin, but a part of the digital factory accessible thru the sample window.

just a few comments for whatever they're worth:

i've used logic from way back, in OS9 days. i have to say, i have NEVER liked the sound of a bounced track. there's ALWAYS loss, not only level-wise, but sound quality-wise. experimenting forever with sample rate and bit rate make little difference. tried bouncing it to 2 stereo tracks, fully panning each resultant track left and right and placing multipressor, ad-limiter, eq blah blah in the output and bouncing again. to me, a directly bounced track (whether it's loud or not) always sounds like S compared to the sound of the track (all tracks playing back together) before bouncing. yeah, people say, "it should sound the same, it's digital". this, to me, is complete and utter BS (deserves caps). it's NEVER the same. it ALWAYS loses. to me, AE so far does the most unsophisticated but best job (of course, as you know, depending on the material), if you want high gain and are recording a 'high intensity' (for want of better words) track, whatever you reasons or needs are. i am capable of being just as puritanical as anyone on this post, and say, "throw out your eq, compressing, limiting, why do you want it louder louder, use your volume control, ad nauseum. but hold on, maybe you NEED it louder sometimes?

1. i have not, can not, and will not spend thousands on mastering hardware. or a better pair of monitors. i can do a-b tests on my car stereo (with subwoofer), my wife's stereo, my brother's stereo, etc etc.
2. any bounce in any version of Logic, as with analogue equip, NEVER sounds the same. say what you will. digitally, something is subtracted. how can 15 tracks be reduced to 1 or 2 tracks and sound the same? anyone can proove me wrong, i'm happy for that and will happily apply the secrets divulged to me. until then, i firmly hold it's utter BS to say that a bounce 'should sound the same as the original'.
3. i am not interested, nor can afford, to leave logic and splash out on protools etc etc.

if someone can tell me how to get a bounce that sounds like the original i'll give them a big handshake and a hug too. good luck!

you need to investigate the issues surrounding digital summing. they are not the same as for analogue summing.

there has been a lot of talk about this a few months back on this forum and others. the basoc pronicpal has to do with the way DAWs deal with intersample peaks that go over 0db.

the solution is to ensure that when you bounce that your peak does not go over about -9db. then you can apply mastering techniques to bring the level up. this will result in a much clearer mix.

so it can be done. do a search for discussions relating to digital summing.

PS can i get my hug now?

thanks Rohan, that's really cool - I shall study as you have guided. I'm also quite glad to know I'm somewhat 'on the cusp' of it all.

ironically, I was just about to post another follow up to my own post, almost apologetically -- imagine it, I've just been having a real ball - I just redid a bounce down, yes, bouncing down to 2 tracks and again using multipressor and ad-limiter NO EQ on that bounce. It's starting to sound a million bucks. How come? well, and this may help some other 'amateurs' like me -- I found in my original I hadn't, as usual, given much attention to panning in the stereo mix. did that, placed things giving them their 'own spaces' - bingo! when I bounce down it sounds so much closer to the original. excitingly so. to be fair, when all the various instruments/voices etc are 'on top of one another' in a stereo mix, obviously something's going to have to give. another discovery, if I use stereo spread and/or any eq in that last bounce, wherever I place them in the ouput, they take away ad-limiter's 'squeezing' capabilities. it's a fact.

Oh, and I almost forgot; Rohan, have 2 hugs!

Hey David,


I wanted to check out your album, but when I
punch in David Robinson-Hot on CDBaby. I got
over 100 albums, any album that had David or
Robinson in the title. Could you please help me
to find your album. Thanks, Phil

This thread was very helpful, thanks for the sharing.

well, i've waded thru' digital summing discussions, phew! before it becomes 'this topic has been archived, no replies are allowed', i'm replying to myself and asking (Rohan, anybody?) what is a reasonably (not thousands) priced analogue piece of equipment for using to avoid bouncing in Logic? sorry, Apple, if this is not entirely Apple-related, or maybe it is, as Apple may address the issue more intently in future updates/versions.

just something to get the ball rolling. i don't want to use the waves demo and be tempted to have to fork out us 600 bucks! what's the practical bottom line? thanks folks!

just to rave on a little further:
a/d convertors, d/a convertors, to eq or not to eq, to compress or adlimit or not to, to make louder or not to, which bit depth and which sample rate to and not to, output at -12db when bouncing, bouncing thru' an anologue desk, and so on. HO HO HO HO HO

but just one little question: (note: above in RED: "this question has not been answered") apart from all that, dear Santa, could I just have in the output what I put into the input, because I like that. I don't need anything else just now, so it should be easy for you?!

just got the update to 7.2.2. here's for fun...

maharaj,

if i were to replace my gear i would seriously consider the mackie onyx with the firewire card. its an analogue mixer with the option of AD/DA conversion via firewire.

i am a little superstitious about digital summing, though from what the experts say, it is the 'truest' form if done right. i am used to the way i do it with my tiny little behringer mixer and i get great results if i do say so myself, although i am sure i could get better if i were to upgrade.

i like having stems on to which i add my outboard reverb. for me personally i feel the outboard reverb 'glues' better to the sound source and i drive my desk as hard as it will go - the opposite of what you would do if you were digitally summing.

other people here would better be able to advise you about gear. i simply followed the digital summing discussion and did a little of my own research and hence i have a grsp of the pitfalls - but i am no expert by any stretch of the imagination i can tell you.

maharaj,

if i were to replace my gear i would seriously
consider the mackie onyx with the firewire card. its
an analogue mixer with the option of AD/DA conversion
via firewire.

i am a little superstitious about digital summing,
though from what the experts say, it is the 'truest'
form if done right. i am used to the way i do it with
my tiny little behringer mixer and i get great
results if i do say so myself, although i am sure i
could get better if i were to upgrade.

i like having stems on to which i add my outboard
reverb. for me personally i feel the outboard reverb
'glues' better to the sound source and i drive my
desk as hard as it will go - the opposite of what you
would do if you were digitally summing.

other people here would better be able to advise you
about gear. i simply followed the digital summing
discussion and did a little of my own research and
hence i have a grsp of the pitfalls - but i am no
expert by any stretch of the imagination i can tell
you.

Rohan
many thanks for the input. I am also (may I say) something of a 'little boy' in this, but I will say in my defence I've got big ears. (I was a professional musician for upteen years, though not now, but music 'comes back' to us). All I use is a Motu 828 (not even the new one). A card wouldn't be an option for me right now either, as I use a 1.67 17" Powerbook (obviously no pcis). Your hint to me, knowingly or unknowingly, is about your tiny little behringer mixer. Do you just feed each track into that mixer and can you then take them out as one track from the mixer? What's the model # of that mixer?
Again, the digital summing aspect of it, I might take the arrogance to venture, is probably not such a complex matter either. I rather prefer to take help from someone on the ground floor as it were, as I mentioned earlier, I cannot and will not unnecessarily expand my hardware and stuff madly, been there done that in other fields (I'll let it out: I own 15 guitars)...
thanks again!

and Ray, thanks for your kind input as well. I have probably misled you a little due to somewhat ambiguously posting on this subject, but as you will have seen, Rohan knows well what I'm babbling on about. cheers!

my behringer is a mix 2004a. its very basic but seems to do everything i need it to. i mix out of my delta 4 stems, out 1-2 a bit of reverb, 3-4 a bit more, 5-6 more still, 7-8 completely dry. my jv1080 (which i have been rediscovering lately) is patched directly into logic so that i can use the internal effects.

i occassionally record at home up to 3 strings (or other instruments) - any more than that and i will go to a studio.

so i record the stereo master out from the behringer with the delta and i add audio energizer at the end (always).

digital summing is not complex to actually do but actually it is a fairly deep subject. it is worth understanding it because it will have a bearing on how you mix. one of my reasons for loitering around this forum is to pick up stuff like that. all of the general chatter really has added to my understanding of the technology i am trying to use to achieve my ends.

if you have a motu 828 you should be fine with that. there are a lot of good analogue desks out there and it shouldn't be too hard to find something adequate. in fact at the top end of the spectrum are dedicated analogue summing boxes which cost huge amounts of money. i am always dubious with these things. maybe they make £5000 wroth of difference but somehow i doubt it.